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Blaine High School sophomore Riley Tufte on Saturday announced his college plans.

“Proud to announce I have verbally committed to play college hockey for the University of Minnesota Duluth,” Tufte tweeted.

Tufte, a 6-foot-4, 190-pound forward, had 17 goals and 20 assists for the Bengals, who were ranked among the top five in Class AA for much of the winter. They finished 22-5-1 and lost to Centennial in the Section 5AA title game.

COLLEGE SOFTBALL

Saints swept in Iowa

St. Scholastica drop a pair of games to ranked teams on Saturday in Pella, Iowa, falling 9-5 to No. 23

Washington-St. Louis and 9-3 to No. 12 Central College (Iowa).

Kelsey Neal had three hits and three RBIs and Stacy Berg hit a home run to lead Washington-St. Louis (16-9) in the opener. Kassandra McCabe and Molly Jazdzewski had home runs to lead the Saints.

Abbey Strajack and Kaitlyn Matzen had a double and two RBIs each as Central (14-4) used five doubles to power past St. Scholastica in the second game.

Kara Warren and Sydney Gordon had doubles and Jazdzewski had two hits and two RBIs to lead the Saints (6-8).

COLLEGE TENNIS

Saints’ 17-year streak snapped

St. Scholastica lost an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference regular-season dual match for the first time in program history in a 6-3 loss to Northwestern on Saturday in Lakeville, Minn.

The Saints had never lost a UMAC dual contest, going 113-0 dating to 1997. It was the second longest known streak in NCAA Division III tennis, behind the College of New Jersey’s active streak of 154-0.

St. Scholastica (9-6 overall 2-1 UMAC) got off to a good start as Katie Kingston of Virginia and Allie Carlson of Aitkin, Minn., won in No. 3 doubles, but the Eagles (7-4, 1-0) won a close match at No. 2 doubles and dominated in singles play.

-- The St. Scholastica men (12-0, 3-0) won their eighth straight with a 9-0 victory over Northwestern as freshman Logan Engelstad of Thief River Falls, Minn., helped the Saints get off to a strong start, teaming with Jake Tideman of Duluth to win in No. 3 doubles and later capturing a victory in No. 4 singles.

CURLING

Fenson rink off to slow start

The Pete Fenson rink of Bemidji, Minn., got off to a slow start at the World Men’s Curling Championship on Saturday, dropping two games in Beijing during China’s debut as world curling host.

Fenson and teammates Shawn Rojeski (Chisholm), Joe Polo (Duluth) and Ryan Brunt (Portage, Wis.) lost 9-7 to the Czech Republic and 8-6 to Sweden in a pair of tight losses.

“We’re struggling with the ice a hair. It’s really sensitive to releases and the guys are just having trouble getting the rocks in the right spots,” Fenson said in a release.

Fenson is competing in his eighth world championship.

The U.S. (0-2) plays Russia (1-0) today as the 12 competing teams are playing an 11-game round robin. The top four advance to Friday’s playoffs. The U.S men’s program has not won a world curling championship since 1978.